by Julia Shumway, Oregon Capital Chronicle
April 5, 2025
MADRAS— At least 125 people flocked to the busy intersection of U.S. routes 26 and 97 in Madras on Saturday afternoon to protest President Donald Trump’s cuts to federal programs and other policies.
The protest, the largest demonstration many attendees can recall in Madras, was part of a nationwide day of “Hands Off” demonstrations, which organizers described as peaceful protests meant to get Trump and billionaire Elon Musk to stop firing federal workers, slashing funding for government grants and programs and sharing Americans’ personal data with Musk’s employees at the Department of Government Efficiency. In Oregon, more than a dozen protests were planned in big cities and small towns alike, from Portland to Pendleton, Astoria to Coos Bay. Madras resident Cheyenne Dobkins attended her first political protest on Saturday, April 5, 2025, saying she didn’t want to stay quiet. (Photo by Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Madras, the Jefferson County seat with a population just less than 8,000, is far from a hotbed of liberal activism: Trump won the county by 30 points in 2024. It’s also one of more than a dozen counties east of the Cascades that passed a largely symbolic ordinance in support of moving the Oregon-Idaho borders, arguing that eastern and central Oregon residents have more in common politically and culturally with Idaho than with Portland or the Willamette Valley.
The Madras demonstration attracted Jefferson County residents with years of experience protesting and speaking out politically and newcomers like Cheyenne Dobkins, a Madras resident who scrawled “my tummy hurts and I’m mad at the government” on a poster board she bought from Dollar General.
“I’m tired of being quiet,” Dobkins said. “And I don’t want anyone after all this to ask ‘Why didn’t you say anything?’”
Dobkins said protesting was a little scary, especially given her city’s conservative politics, but she wanted her neighbors to recognize that people who live and work there are being hurt by administration policies including plans to cut tens of thousands of workers who help veterans with their benefits, deportations of migrant workers and tariffs that caused the stock market and people’s retirement accounts to plummet.
Some hecklers drove by, including a man who yelled “Elon rules” and one who used a megaphone to shout “make America great again.” A few others used their diesel trucks’ modified engines to blow clouds of black exhaust and cause protesters to back away coughing.
And about four Trump supporters gathered on one corner, waving signs and flags of their own. Some protesters stood near them but avoided interacting, as protest organizers emphasized that the demonstration needed to stay peaceful. Madras resident Teresa Fuentes, 32, has needed around-the-clock care since she was injured in a car accident as a 3-year-old. She attended a protest in Madras on Saturday to urge the federal government to avoid cuts to Medicaid, which pays for her caregivers. (Photo by Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Former Madras Mayor Royce Embanks, a 30-year veteran who served in the Air Force and Army, said Trump’s rise to power made Madras a less friendly place than it was when he moved to town in 1998.
“The friendliness is gone from a lot of people,” Embanks said. “They’ve drawn a line between all of us because of Trump.”
Organizer Laura Fuentes, a Madras resident and retired Warm Springs elementary school teacher, learned about the “Hands Off” day of protests from MSNBC and decided Madras should host its own instead of traveling to a larger event in Bend.
Fuentes, who is active in the Jefferson County Democratic Party, has Republican friends who support Trump — if she didn’t, she said, she wouldn’t have many friends at all living in Madras.
She said they should care when impacts of Trump’s policies affect their little town, such as his decision last week to fire all employees of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that helps low-income families in Madras and communities around the country pay their electricity and gas bills.
“I don’t know how long it’s going to take, but people are going to start seeing this,” she said. “It can be too late after. They don’t get this is the time to time to make noise.”
Laura’s daughter, Teresa Fuentes, 32, had a sign proclaiming “Hands Off Medicaid” stuck in the back of her wheelchair. Teresa has needed around-the-clock care since a 1996 car accident when she was only 3 years old. Medicaid pays for her caregivers, and she fears what would happen if Congress cuts the federal program to pay for tax cuts.
“Instead of cutting taxes for the millionaires and billionaires, they should either cut taxes for the middle class and low-income or they should leave taxes as they are and support Medicare, Social Security, all the social services that people with disabilities depend on,” she said. U.S. Forest Service fish biologist Scott Turo attended a Madras protest on Saturday, April 5, 2025. He’s trying to save his job protecting Oregon’s watersheds. (Photo by Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Madras resident Scott Turo wrote “I am getting fired Tuesday” on a repurposed shipping box. He has worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a fish biologist since 2022 after more than two decades of working on natural resources with tribal governments.
Turo has worked for the federal government long enough that he wasn’t subject to the mass firings of probationary workers earlier this year, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture is trying to get rid of thousands of additional employees. He took a break from writing a letter he’ll send next week trying to convince anyone in power at the Forest Service of the value of his job to participate in the protest.
“From what I can tell, most levels of the Forest Service are blindfolded sheep being led to the slaughterhouse,” he said. Lucy Suppah, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, attends a protest in Madras on Saturday, April 5, 2025. (Photo by Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Lucy Suppah, a member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs who participated in the protest, said tribal members were already struggling to access the benefits they’re entitled to before Trump took office, and things are getting worse.
For instance, the clinic on Warm Springs hasn’t had a permanent doctor, sharing rotating doctors with other clinics under the federal Indian Health Service. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy verbally rescinded some layoffs at the Indian Health Service last month, but tribes still fear cuts to federal funding.
“From what little I understand, we have to do a lot more than just write a letter,” Suppah said. “I think it’s always been that way for Native Americans to have to fight for what we’re entitled to.”
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Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Julia Shumway for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com.